delivering the opinion of the court in Security Trust Company v. Dodd, Mead & Co., 173 U. S. 624, and the conclusion reached that voluntary assignments for the benefit of creditors should be given force in other States as to property therein situate, except so far as they come in conflict with the rights of local creditors, or with the public policy of the State in which it is sought to be enforced; and, as was said by Mr. Justice McLean in Oakey v. Bennett, 11 How. 33, 44, "national comity does not require any government to give effect to such assignment [for the benefit of creditors] when it shall impair the remedies or lessen the securities of its own citizens."

There being, then, no provision of positive law requiring the recognition of the right of the plaintiff in error to appropriate property in the State of Wisconsin and subject it to distribution for the benefit of foreign creditors as against the demands of local creditors, how far the public policy of the State permitted such recognition was a matter for the State to determine for itself. In determining that the policy of Wisconsin would not permit the property to be thus appropriated to the enefit of alien creditors as against the demands of the citizens of the State, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin has done no more than has been frequently done by nations and states in refusing to exercise the doctrine of comity in such wise as to impair the right of local creditors to subject local property to their just claims. We fail to perceive how this application of a well known rule can be said to deprive the plaintiff in error of its property without due process of law.

Upon the motion for rehearing the plaintiff in error called attention to two alleged treaty provisions between the United States and the Kingdom of Prussia, the first from the treaty of 1828, and the second from the treaty of 1799. As to the last mentioned treaty the following provision was referred to:

"Each party shall endeavor by all the means in their power to protect and defend all vessels and other effects belonging to the citizens or subjects of the other, which shall be within the extent of their jurisdiction by sea or by land."

The treaty of 1799 expired by its own terms on June 2, 1810, and the provision relied upon is not set forth in so much of the treaty as was revived by article 12 of the treaty of May 1, 1828. See Compilation of Treaties in Force, 1904, prepared under resolution of the Senate, pp. 638 et seq. If this provision of the treaty of 1799 were in force we are unable to see that it has any bearing upon the present case.

Article one of the treaty of 1828 between the Kingdom of Prussia and the United States is as follows:

"There shall be between the territories of the high contracting parties a reciprocal liberty of commerce and navigation. The inhabitants of their respective states shall mutually have liberty to enter the ports, places and rivers of the territories of each party wherever foreign commerce is permitted. They shall be at liberty to sojourn and reside in all parts whatsoever of said territories, in order to attend to their affairs; and they shall enjoy, to that effect, the same security and protection as natives of the country wherein they reside, on condition of their submitting to the laws and ordinances there prevailing."

This treaty is printed as one of the treaties in force in the compilation of 1904, p. 643, and has undoubtedly been recognized by the two governments as still in force since the formation of the German Empire. See Terlinden v. Ames, 184 U. S. 270; Foreign Relations of 1883, p. 369; Foreign Relations of 1885, pp. 404, 443, 444; Foreign Relations of 1887, p. 370; Foreign Relations of 1895, part one, 539.

Assuming, then, that this treaty is still in force between the United States and the German Empire, and conceding the rule that treaties should be liberally interpreted with a view to protecting the citizens of the respective countries in rights thereby secured, is there anything in this article which required any different decision in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin than that given? The inhabitants of the respective countries are to be at liberty to sojourn and reside in all parts whatsoever of said territories in order to attend to their affairs, and they shall enjoy, to that effect, the same security and protection as

the natives of the country wherein they reside, upon submission to the laws and ordinances there prevailing. It requires very great ingenuity to perceive anything in this treaty provision applicable to the present case. It is said to be found in the right of citizens of Prussia to attend to their affairs in this country. The treaty provides that for that purpose they are to have the same security and protection as natives in the country wherein they reside. Even between States of the American Union, as shown in the opinion of Mr. Justice Brown in Security Trust Co. v. Dodd, Mead & Co., 173 U. S., supra, it has been the constant practice not to recognize assignments for the benefit of creditors outside the State, where the same came in conflict with the rights of domestic creditors seeking to recover their debts against local property. This is the doctrine in force as against natives of the country residing in other states, and it is this doctrine which has been applied by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin to foreign creditors residing in Germany. In short, there is nothing in this treaty undertaking to change the well-recognized rule between states and nations which permits a country to first protect the rights of its own citizens in local property before permitting it to be taken out of the jurisdiction for administration in favor of those residing beyond their borders.

The judgment of the Circuit Court of Milwaukee County entered upon the remittitur from the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is

Affirmed.

208 U.S.

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. STATE OF MINNESOTA ex rel. THE CITY OF DULUTH.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA.

No. 92. Argued December 20, 23, 1907.-Decided February 24, 1908.

In cases arising under the contract clause of the Federal Constitution this court determines for itself, irrespective of the decision of the state court, whether a contract exists and whether its obligation has been impaired, and if plaintiff in error substantially sets up a claim of contract with allegations of its impairment by state or municipal legislation, the judgment of the state court is reviewable by this court under § 709, Rev. Stat. Municipal legislation passed under supposed legislative authority from the State is within the prohibition of the Federal Constitution and void if it impairs the obligation of a contract.

While an ordinance merely denying liability under an existing contract does not necessarily amount to an impairment of the obligation of that contract within the meaning of the Federal Constitution, where the ordinance requires expenditure of money by one relieved therefrom by a contract, a valid contract claim is impaired and this court has jurisdiction. The right to exercise the police power is a continuing one that cannot be limited or contracted away by the State or its municipality, nor can it be destroyed by compromise as it is immaterial upon what consideration the attempted contract is based.

The exercise of the police power in the interest of public health and safety is to be maintained unhampered by contracts in private interests, and uncompensated obedience to an ordinance passed in its exercise is not violative of property rights protected by the Federal Constitution; held, that an ordinance of a municipality of that State, valid under the law of that State as construed by its highest court, compelling a railroad to repair a viaduct constructed, after the opening of the railroad, by the city in pursuance of a contract relieving the railroad, for a substantial consideration, from making any repairs thereon for a term of years was not void under the contract, or the due process, clause of the Constitution. 98 Minnesota, 429, affirmed.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Charles W. Bunn for plaintiff in error:

This court has jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of Minnesota

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

208 U.S.

held that there was no contract, and therefore did not come to the question whether a law of the State violated a contract. But this court has jurisdiction of the question, and will decide for itself, whether there was a contract. Stearns v. Minnesota, 179 U. S. 223, 232 and cases cited.

If the contract was valid, it was violated by a law of the State, i. e., the city ordinance or resolution of July 13, 1903, which was a legislative act in that it was a legislative determination, of what repairs should be made, and that the railway company and not the city should make them.

The action of the city was not confined to a denial of the validity, or of the binding force in some particular of the contract, as in St. Paul Gas Light Co. v. St. Paul, 181 U. S. 142.

City laws are state laws within the meaning of the Federal Constitution. Mercantile Trust Co. v. Columbus, 203 U. S. 311, and cases cited, p. 320. The jurisdiction of this court is sustained by Waterworks Company v. Vicksburg, 185 U. S. 65, 81; Waterworks Company v. Louisiana, 185 U. S. 336, 350, and Cleveland v. Cleveland City Ry. Co., 194 U. S. 517, 530, 531; and see Dawson v. Columbia Trust Company, 197 U. S. 178.

As to the merits: Plaintiff in error's predecessor was upon the ground at Lake avenue before the street was made, and the public and not the railway was therefore rightfully chargeable with the whole expense of providing for the street travel. Minneapolis v. St. Paul, M. & M. Ry. Co., 35 Minnesota, 131; Boston & Albany R. R. Co. v. Cambridge, 159 Massachusetts, 283, 287; St. Paul, M. & M. Ry. Co. v. District Court, 42 Minnesota, 247; State v. Ensign, 54 Minnesota, 372; St. Paul v. Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Ry. Co., 85 Minnesota, 416.

The foundation of the conclusion below was, that in 1891 when the contract was made the law of the State imposed upon the railway the whole burden of building and repairing the bridge. For that reason the contract dividing the burden was held bad. Except for the rule of law just stated, laid down by the Minnesota court for the first time in this case, that